BERANDA

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Prince Charles commended a project in Zanzibar where IFEES played a major role, in a speech delivered on Islam and the Environment at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford yesterday under the aegis of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.

This project which has received world wide acclaim was the first ever in which environmental ethics derived from the Qur'an was taught. The Zanzibari fishermen stopped dynamiting coral reefs soon after they participated in the first workshop on Islam and Conservation in 1998. HRH HRH The Prince of Wales says:

"These are schemes that are close to my heart, but the Oxford Centre keeps me informed of many others. Working in Muslim countries, the World Wildlife Fund has found that trying to convey the importance of conservation is much easier if it is transmitted by religious leaders whose reference is Qur'anic teaching.

In Zanzibar, they had little success trying to reduce spear-fishing and the use of dragnets, which were destroying the coral reefs. But when the guidance came from the Qur'an, there was a notable change in behaviour. Or in Indonesia and in Malaysia, where former poachers are being deterred in the same way from destroying the last remaining tigers." [www.princeofwales.gov.uk][End]